Before 1881

In the 1860s a socialist movement began to develop in the Netherlands. The development was aided by the foundation of the First International and the foundation of the first trade unions.

Most of those unions however were united in the moderate Algemeen Nederlandsch Werklieden Verbond (General Dutch Workingmans' Association; ANWV) in 1871, which was founded by Protestants and liberals to combat the influence of the Dutch section of the First International. Some prominent Dutch representatives of the First International joined the ANWV in order to radicalise the organisation. In 1878 they, led by Willem Ansigh, left the ANWV to found the Sociaal-Democratische Vereeniging (Social-Democratic Association; SDV). It had branches in major cities like Amsterdam, The Hague, Haarlem and Rotterdam

1881–1893: Social Democratic League

The SDB was founded in 1881 by members of the SDV and similar local socialist parties. The strongest of these local socialist parties were located in the poor rural province Friesland. The party was based on Marxist principles and therefore expected a proletarian revolution. In 1882 Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, a lapsed Lutheran minister, was elected as general secretary of the party. He would hold this position until 1887 and grow to become the party's strongman, he retained the position when he was in prison in 1886–1887 for insulting the monarchy. The party published the paper "Justice for All" (Recht voor Allen) of which Domela was editor. The SDB was also affiliated to the League for General Suffrage, which was a dominantly liberal organisation which campaigned for universal suffrage.

In 1888, despite the party's revolutionary orientation it decided to participate in the election. Domela Nieuwenhuis was elected to the House of Representatives for the district of Schoterland. The party was supported by the liberal Frisian People's Party (Friesche Volkspartij). Domela Nieuwenhuis won the seat in the second round with the support from the Protestant Anti-Revolutionary Party, which preferred a socialist over a liberal MP. In parliament Domela Nieuwenhuis tried to gain attention for the interests of the Dutch workers, but he was ignored by other MPs.

In the 1891 general election Domela decided not stand for reelection. His seat was taken by Willem Treub, a member of the left-liberal Radical League. This electoral defeat led to debate within the party. A group of 'moderates' wanted to continue the parliamentary work and the reformist course, another group, led by Domela Nieuwenhuis, wanted to pursue an anti-parliamentary course with a strong anarchist orientation. This led to a split; during the SDB party conference of 1893 in Groningen, a majority voted to stop participating in the elections. A minority of members led by Pieter Jelles Troelstra tried to prevent this, and later left the party in order to create a new party. The split mirrored a larger conflict in the First International between reformists and revolutionaries, and Marxists and anarchists.

1893–1900: Socialists' League

In 1893 the SDB was forbidden by the court because the party had promoted illegal means to attain its goal. In response the party renamed itself Socialists' League (Socialistenbond, SB). When the anarchist elements began to take full control of the SDB, important regional social democratic figures joined the group around Troelstra. Together they formed a group called "the twelve apostles". They founded the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) in 1894. In 1896 the radical wing of the party, led by Domela Nieuwenhuis, left the SB and continued without a party organisation. They chose for an anarchist course and direct action. They founded the paper De Vrije Socialist ("The Free Socialist") and became strongly linked to the Nationaal Arbeidssecretariaat (National Workers' Secretariat; NAS) an anarcho-syndicalist union founded in 1893. In 1901 the district of Schoterland elected the independent Socialist candidate, Geert van der Zwaag as its MP. His views were similar to those of Domela Nieuwenhuis in the 1880s. In 1900 the SB joined the SDAP which had become electorally successful. When Domela Nieuwenhuis died in 1919 the anarchist movement in the Netherlands lost significance.

Part of a series on
Socialism
History Outline
Development Age of the Enlightenment French Revolution Revolutions of 1848 Socialist calculation debate Socialist economics
Ideas Calculation in kind Collective ownership Cooperative Common ownership Critique of political economy Economic democracy Economic planning Equal liberty Equal opportunity Free association Freed market Industrial democracy Input–output model Internationalism Labor-time calculation Labour voucher Material balance planning Peer‑to‑peer economics Production for use Sharing economy Spontaneism Social dividend Social ownership Socialism in one country Socialist mode of production Soviet democracy Strike action To each according to his contribution/needs Vanguardism Workers' self-management Workplace democracy
Models Socialist planned economy Decentralized planning Inclusive Democracy OGAS Project Cybersyn Soviet-type Market socialism Lange model Mutualism Socialist market economy Socialist-oriented market Communal socialism Participatory economics
Variants 21st-century African Arab Agrarian Anarchism Authoritarian Blanquism Buddhist Chinese Christian Communism Democratic Digital Ethical Ecological Feminist Fourierism Free-market Gandhian Guild Islamic Jewish Laissez-faire Liberal Libertarian Marhaenism Market Marxism Municipal Nationalist Nkrumaism Owenism Reformism Religious Revolutionary Ricardian Saint-Simonianism Scientific Sewer Social democracy State Syndicalism Third World Utopian Yellow Zionist
People Gracchi Brothers Mazdak Ball More Winstanley Morelly Hall Saint-Simon Buonarroti Owen Fourier Thompson Hodgskin Schulz Leroux Babeuf Pecqueur Sue Blanqui Ledru-Rollin Dézamy Considerant Proudhon Blanc Andrews Herzen Bakunin Marx Engels Wallace Lavrov Pi Lassalle Saltykov Chernyshevsky Tolstoy Michel Morris Jones Bebel Lorenzo Mainwaring Kropotkin Carpenter Sorel Parsons Bernstein Iglesias Parsons León Malatesta Kautsky Wilde Taylor Debs Plekhanov Ferrer Dewey Barone Wells Markievicz Du Bois Gorky Connolly Goldman Gandhi Landauer Berkman Luxemburg Liebknecht Blum Russell Pannekoek Larkin Einstein Trotsky Keller Tawney Schapiro Pankhurst Attlee Lukács Pestaña Korsch Polanyi Peiró Seguí Vanzetti Makhno Cole Gramsci Sacco Petrichenko Tito Maksimov Leval Nagy Durruti Gerhardsen Santillán Day Marcuse James García Ascaso Erlander Orwell Mattick Douglas Montseny Sartre Senghor Allende van der Lubbe Kreisky Mitterrand Chartrand Nasser Mandela Bookchin Dubček Zinn Castoriadis Gorz Thompson Lefort Ward Manley Che Chomsky King Gorbachev Scargill Fotopoulos Sanders Wolff Ali Lula Holloway Žižek Öcalan Corbyn Sankara West Hedges Marcos Graeber Varoufakis
Organizations International socialist organizations Socialist parties
Related topics Anarchism Capitalism Communist society Criticism of capitalism Criticism of socialism Economic calculation problem Economic system French Left Left-libertarianism Libertarianism List of socialist economists Market abolitionism Marxist philosophy Nanosocialism Progressivism Socialism and LGBT rights Socialist calculation debate Socialist Party Socialist state Workers' council
Lists Related lists Category By country Socialists Songs
Socialism portal (WikiProject)  Communism portal  Organized Labour portal

Name

Before the Russian Revolution the term social democrat, socialist and communist were used interchangeably to denote a Marxist ideology. Social democrat was not more or less radical than socialist. The organisations called itself League (Bond) because it did not see itself as a party in the traditional sense. It was entrenched in the extra-parliamentary opposition and only entered elections once.